Thoughts on Scrum – Part 2
So in the last post I gave an overall description of Scrum. In this post I want to lay out more about the roles. Now, you can find this information anywhere. What I thought might be helpful is to give you my impressions as they compare to traditional or waterfall PM. Again, these are my […]
Thoughts on Scrum – Part 3 (final)
So what to make of Scrum? Well, firstly let me comment on the Scrum Master test. Since my first post, I took the test and got certified. As someone who has been teaching PMP for 12 years, let me reiterate what I said in the first post: this test is pretty easy and nowhere near […]
ESI list of top ten PM trends
ESI International is a pretty well-respected leader in project management (and is in fact, where I got my PMP training lo those many years ago). This link is their take on top ten trends in project management. They also have a video on the same topic here. None of it is earth-shattering but probably worth checking out. Note […]
Things to know before becoming a PMP – Part One
Note: I wrote this series of blogs because there is a lot of misinformation out there about the PMP exam. (One potential customer, for example, wanted to hire me because “since you are a PMP, you must be good at Microsoft Project.” Now it’s likely true that PMP’s probably use Microsoft Project on a regular […]
PMI exam dates (and more)
I previously posted dates for the new PMI exams on my site. I now have access to the full document from PMI that details not only those dates but also other interesting stuff such as standards and different publication dates for different documents. You can find it here
Things to know before becoming a PMP – Part Two
Now, many universities have degree programs in project management. I used to teach a masters program at one. There is no comparison between the breadth of education you get at this level versus a PMP. Consider that for PMP Prep you are likely to attend a 35-hour class. During that time, the instructor has to […]
Things to know before becoming a PMP – Part Three
If after all of the soul-searching you have decided (or are required) to get your PMP, as mentioned we now turn to a whole new set of questions. The first question I always get is this: I’ve heard the exam is really hard. Is it? Well, yes it is. This fact is well-known and […]
Risk Management Overview
I noted earlier that I would write a series of posts on risk management. That series will largely be based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), Fourth Edition. But I thought it best to first discuss and frame the issue of risk management. Why would we do it? And what are the impediments […]
Risk Management Planning
In the last session, I gave an overview of what risk is and why it might be important, if not mandatory, to do risk management in your project. Today I want to talk about the first level of risk planning, which is to create a risk management plan. Now these management plans that we often […]
Identifying risks
Now that we’ve done our risk management planning, the very next step is to identify risks. This is exactly what it sounds like – brainstorming to figure out what possible bad things might crop up to bite you during the project. How do you do this? Well, quite simply, get the team in a room. […]
Risk Qualification (Prioritization)
Now that you’ve identified all the risks on the project, you have to figure out which ones have priority over others, either by imminence or, most likely, by greatest probability and impact. They can’t all be priority number one no matter how much easier that may seem for us. PMI calls this process Qualitative Risk […]
